Posted on 01/25/2014 8:05:47 PM PST by Armen Hareyan
The catastrophic rise in obesity across the United States and worldwide has been making headlines. Obesity is associated with a myriad of physical and emotional problems which can be life threatening. It appears modern lifestyles with too much junk food and not enough exercise are largely to blame, and yet who is actually responsible for things going this far wherein the overall health of the entire human species is at risk from obesity?
Researchers sought to determine who it is the public perceives of as being most responsible for the rise in obesity, reported the journal Appetite. The researchers also wanted to identify the determinants for such perceptions. They conducted a nationwide survey of 800 U.S. individuals. The respondents were asked in regard to three categories, primarily, somewhat, and not to blame for the rise in obesity, to list the following seven entities:
1: Food manufacturers
2: Grocery stores
3: Restaurants
4: Government policies
5: Farmers
6: Individuals
7: Parents
Eighty percent of the respondents said individuals were primarily to blame for the catastrophic rise in obesity. Parents were noted to be the next-most blameworthy group, with 59% ascribing them primary blame.
Fast food restaurants have been hit with a great deal of the blame for the rise in obesity in the United States, but questions have been raised regarding the validity of this blame, reports College of Aces on Jan. 22, 2014. The research survey, which was conducted by two food economists, has revealed that most people believe that individuals are to blame for their own obesity, not restaurants, grocery stores, farmers, or government policies.
An implication which has arisen from this research is that creating and enforcing public policies to help lower obesity and/or to encourage healthier food choices may not be as effective as policy makers would like to think. Brenna Ellison, a researcher at the University of Illinois, has explained that she and her colleague, Jayson Lusk at Oklahoma State University, have both been interested in the effectiveness of different food policies. However, previous research has shown many of the food policies which are designed to improve food choices, such as requiring calorie information on restaurant menus and taxing sugar-sweetened beverages, do not always produce the results which are intended. Questions have arisen as to why these policies are meeting with failure.
Ellison has said, “Obesity is in the news every day so it would be hard to say that people are unaware of the policy initiatives in place to reduce U.S. obesity rates.” Ellison takes the position that a more likely conclusion is that the beliefs of consumers do not necessarily align themselves with the beliefs of policy makers and public health advocates. We like to think of the United States as an individualistic based society, and so it’s not really surprising that we would put this responsibility for obesity on ourselves.
The online survey used for this survey was administered by Clear Voice Research whose registry of panelists is said to be representative of the U.S. population in terms of socioeconomic characteristics, gender, and region. The survey responders took the position that farmers and grocery stores were relatively blameless for the upsetting rise in obesity. The researchers found that farmers and people who received food stamps were more likely to blame government and farm policy for this problem. The researchers were surprised by this, feeling that opinion would not be expected from people who are benefiting from those policies. However, it appears these individuals may be in the best position to observe the potential harm which some government policies create.
This is an interesting evaluation of the problem of determining who is ultimately responsible for the obesity epidemic. Although it is fair enough to say that individuals should take some of the responsibility for this problem, I also perceive of other factors which should be evaluated in more depth. In particular placing the blame primarily on the individual does not seem fair to me when you give consideration to literal forms of brainwashing by aggressive marketers of junk food and the offering of junk food which is literally addicting.
However, it does make sense for people on food stamps to blame government policies for this serious problem, because most of these people appear to feel strained economic conditions due to government policies have pushed them into the welfare system wherein they can hardly afford to buy as much healthy food as they would like. What we therefore come up with is that the problem of obesity has multidimensional causes, all of which should be taken into account in efforts to deal more effectively with obesity. The problem begins in childhood with childhood obesity being at epidemic levels and needing better intervention, as I have reported upon in a separate article for EmaxHealth.
The catastrophic rise in obesity across the United States and worldwide has been making headlines. Obesity is associated with a myriad of physical and emotional problems which can be life threatening. It appears modern lifestyles with too much junk food and not enough exercise are largely to blame, and yet who is actually responsible for things going this far wherein the overall health of the entire human species is at risk from obesity?
Is this guy a drama queen or what? Hard to believe they would teach such nonsense in medical school.
... and in ten years, the earth will be barren.
One thing I've noticed is the incredible number of food commercials, mostly restaurants with their beautiful displays of food that look nothing like what you get in the actual restaurant, but also food producers (lunch meats, snacks, breads, etc.). And don't forget the beer and soda commercials!
I tell you, even I start to get a munchie craving after the tenth or twentieth one, and I'd eaten less than 3 hours previously!
Learn to cook and do it... is also a good way to improve eating.
'Indudge' yourself in self-control.
I’m not fat, I’m prosperous.
It’s not just the TV.....just drive around town...and you are inundated with fast food, cafe’s, coffee/donut shops, etc...that all call to the less disciplined....
Because of this research, I've been changing my views on what constitutes “healthy”. There are meals that I thought were fattening and low in nutrition (like ham-and-egg scramble) that turned out to be very nutritious, and some meals that I thought were very healthy (like tuna-apple salad) that turned out to have very little nutrition for the amount of calories involved.
I still have yet to find a combination that packs all the micro-nutrients into an amount small enough for my tiny appetite, but the research itself is enlightening. Among other things, I have yet to find a diet plan that takes micro-nutrients into account. I'm curious how much effect those micro-nutrients have on appetite and metabolism?
A vast array of ailments that used to be fatal in fairly short order no longer are. But, although no longer fatal as quickly (or curable all together) they leave the patients debilitated as far as capacity to exercise properly and many medications cause water retention. Add to this better wheelchairs, motorized scooters, walkers, etc and you have a whole lot of people who used to be housebound getting out in public.
Another factor is the laziness and generally abysmal scholarship of the drecks who write articles like this one. Generally, they pull their comparisons from photographs and records made from the period between the first world war as one bookend, running through the great depression, then with world war two as the other bookend. This was a time of relative privation in US history, and if you look at crowd scenes from before this period (particularly photographs in major cities) then you see a whole lot of fat people.
Another manufactured crisis, that only the uneducated fall for.
Kind of like the ozone hole.
And anthropomorphic global warming.
And environmental mercury.
And pure water suddenly becoming scarce.
Yawn.
POPH. (Perpetually Open Pie Hole).
Forks, spoons, knives, cups, straws, plates, and napkins are the cause of obesity. All these items need to be banned.
Video games are the reason kids are such fat little effers now, because they aren’t outside playing ball or throwing rocks at each other.
I think those respondents are wrong- while I am a great believer in individual responsibility, people are really forced to a very great extent to feed themselves from the available foods in the supermarkets, guided by the medical profession and the government recommendations, both of which might be less than optimal. Many deficiencies are inherent in the consensus medical prescription for a healthy diet (the abundant portion of grain foods for one example) and the "low-fat" dictates for another. Obesity and diabetes have exploded with the low fat scheme, and grains are not a natural food for dogs or humans.
Technology.
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